A century ago, a horse-drawn wagon packed with dynamite exploded in front of the J.P. Morgan building on Wall Street. Forty people were killed and another 150 people were injured by the blast. The bomb destroyed much of the building and caused an estimated $30 million in property damage. The most important aspect of the bombing was not how many or how much, but who was the target.
The year before, a bomb went off at the Los Angeles Times building, killing twenty people and injuring over 100. The attack was called the crime of the century when it happened, but it did not register with the people in charge. Prior to the Wall Street bombing, there had been a string of attacks, mostly related to organized labor, but some of it was carried out for purely political reasons.
The thing that was obviously true about the bombings and murders was that they were the acts of foreigners. In fact, the civil and political unrest was exclusively a result of loose immigration policies. Big business was desperate for cheap labor, so they told Washington to open the borders. Many of those immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe brought their radical politics with them.
“This Independence Day, Americans are slowly realizing that the tree of liberty is calling to them again.” From the perspective of the rich people benefiting from open borders, this was a worthwhile trade-off. Sure, the regular people were suffering from immigration, but that was their fault. They should have gotten rich so they could afford to avoid the poor huddled masses being imported to make rich people even more rich. The violence and chaos that came from immigration were not a problem for rich people.
The Wall Street bombing changed how rich people viewed immigration. It was assumed the bomb was the work of radical opponents of capitalism, such as Bolsheviks, anarchists, and militant socialists. The government was charged with rounding many of them up and deporting them. Not long after, Congress passed new laws severely restricting immigration, especially from Southern and Eastern Europe.
This short trip down memory lane is a good reminder that the people in charge of society, the rich and their servants in the managerial class, will act and act swiftly when it comes to things that matter to them. The threat of death focuses the mind on whoever or whatever lies behind the threat. In the case of immigration, the rich were suddenly focused on the problem and put an end to immigration.
This is why the ruling elites of today love open borders. The aspects of it that matter to them are the large bribes they receive from businesses that profit from open borders and the moral signifiers around the concept of immigration. The practical impact of immigration does not touch the decision makers. They just see the happy servants tending the gardens and cleaning their homes.
It is not just immigration. We are seeing the same phenomenon with regards to the war in Ukraine and the resulting global depression that is on the horizon. Whenever a member of the Biden administration is asked about soaring energy costs, they start to giggle and then break into weird chants about magic fuel sources. It is not mental illness causing these weird responses. It is indifference.
You see, in the case of energy, what is important to these people is the set of beliefs about a future powered by pixie dust from the sun. That is far more real to them than the working guy paying five dollars a gallon for gas. The Germans who will be taking cold showers this autumn and heating their homes with candles do not register with the ruling class, but green energy is as real as rain to them.
Read More Another example is the bizarre Jan. 6 show trial. To the people involved in Washington politics, this ridiculous Amber Heard look-alike Liz Cheney trotted out is the most important thing ever. To normal people it does not register because they are too busy looking for baby formula. What matters to them is feeding their kids. What matters to their rulers is how the mean orange man gave them the sads.
Compounding this is the fact that an increasingly important part of ruling class identity is a hatred of the people over whom they rule. Caring about the Dirt People suggests a lack of commitment to the cause. The best way to avoid suspicion these days is to make sure you show proper contempt for normal people, which is why announcing pronouns has become so popular with our rulers.
This reality is why voting no longer matters. Both parties are insulated from the consequences of these polices. What matters most to Mitch McConnell is what matters most to Chuck Schumer. That is being in good standing with the rest of the Cloud People and that means supporting the issues important to them. Your economic suffering does not register with the Cloud People.
Interestingly, the ruling class has some sense of this reality. It is why they have deputized the collection of bigots with names like SPLC, ADL, ACLU, and others to weaponize the modern-day Galleanists. To keep groups like Antifa and BLM from burning down Lizzy Warren’s mansion, they are aimed at middle-class Americans. Stupid people always make for the best useful idiots.
What this means is that unless and until the ruling class comes to feel the impact of its preferred polices, nothing will change. Those seeking reform for something like immigration must find a way to make open borders offensive to the ruling class, either by casting it as a crime against the immigrants or a threat to the ruling class. Once the rulers see open borders as bad for them, the borders close immediately.
History tells us that rulers are rarely swayed by the immorality of their positions, especially when those positions pay so well. That was the lesson of a century ago when the rich started getting killed by anarchists. Suddenly their views on immigration moved from the asset column to the liability column. This is something Thomas Jefferson understood and explained in his famous letter to William Stephens Smith:
What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.
A century ago, Americans learned that the people in charge have to be reminded from time to time that the people preserve the right to revolt. A century before that, the people revolted and installed new leaders. Revolt is the necessary ingredient to a functioning society. This Independence Day, Americans are slowly realizing that the tree of liberty is calling to them again. The rulers would be wise to hear it as well.
